About a week ago, I looked out onto our front lawn and saw some wild violets beginning to grow there. Because we’re a little…passionate, shall we say, about using what we’ve been given, I quickly googled to see if we could use wild violets in any culinary attempts.

Enter violet jelly, which is apparently a THING in Europe. Who knew?
I do, now.

So I polled facebook to find out if anyone knew of a local source for a large quantity of violets. A kind someone graciously volunteered their lawn. Today, I took our oldest to their lawn and made a game of getting as many violets before a forecasted rainstorm, which still hasn’t happened. Those weathermen.

We gathered about two quart-sized ziplock baggies between their lawn and ours.

Gather your violets. Make sure they are from a safe place where pesticides have not been sprayed.

Pour boiling water over violets, and let sit for two to three hours, stirring occasionally. Strain the flowers out, making sure to press out all of the water. You should have 3-1/2 cups of blue-green colored violet water.

Add lemon juice, pectin, and sugar and stir. Transfer to a 4-quart pot.

Bring to boil, boil for one minute. Skim off foamy residue.

We chose to strain the liquid as we poured it into our sterilized jars. This is optional---we just wanted a very smooth texture to our jelly.